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Energy Quest to Focus on Production of Butanol via Gasification
11 June 2007
Energy Quest, Inc., the latest version of the company that had been Syngas International, announced that it plans to concentrate on the production of butanol via gasification and catalytic conversion of carbon-based feedstocks such as coal and waste.
In 2006, Syngas International begun researching the possibility of using gases produced from its M2 modular fluidized bed gasifier and PyStR (Pyrolysis Steam Reforming) process to produce synthetic liquid biofuels, with the first two then under investigation being ethanol and methanol. (Earlier post.)
Energy Quest determined that pursuing butanol production—given the fuel’s advantages over ethanol—would be its primary concentration. Butanol is an alcohol with an energy density close to that of gasoline, an octane rating 25% higher than gasoline, that is non-corrosive and thus can be distributed and used without modification of equipment.
Energy Quest also recently announced that it has successfully added carbon dioxide sequestration technology as a component of the PyStR technology.
June 11, 2007 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Butanol sounds pretty cool as a biofuel product. I'm not sure about coal as a feedstock, even with sequestration. I'd prefer renewable and carbon negative. I heard Dupont was working on enzymes for biobutanol, and hope that can eventually replace ethanol in the scheme of things.
Pryolisis is a different beast. I've heard it is very capital intensive, and so has not seemed cost competitive with other production methods. Perhaps that can be changed with better engineering or amortized down by economies of scale.
Anybody got any data on this?
Posted by: C Harget | Jun 12, 2007 11:58:28 AM
